The City
by randomcrimes
Summary: The city is a place of many strict rules, written by a council of men, passed down through the years and upheld by those that come into power. Day in and day out, nothing changes, and then one day, out of the blue, it does.


* * *

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Summary**: The city is a place of many strict rules, written by a council of men, passed down through the years and upheld by those that come into power. Day in and day out, nothing changes, and then one day, out of the blue, it does.  
**Pairing**: Axel/Roxas (eventually) and the rest are to be announced.  
**Disclaimer**: Unfortunately, I own nothing but the plot of this story.

* * *

The world, or rather, the city at large never changed.

Things shifted but they never actually transformed into something new, and this, Roxas had known to be true since he was free to form independent thought. When he was younger, he used to think otherwise, but age and time had taught him to keep those kinds of dreams buried away, to fall in line, to be exactly like everyone else in the cage of society.

It didn't really bother him anymore, and that was the thing with facts. You could only frown at them for so long, before accepting them as truth, just like everybody else.

He stopped expecting things to change.

Life was funny like that, the moment you stopped waiting on something, it happened.

At eight PM, on a Sunday evening (not even an exciting day of the week), everything changed and whether it was for better or worse, he couldn't say.

Roxas had been walking home from a day with his best friends, Hayner, Pence, and Olette and to be honest, he was running a little bit late. Curfew was at nine, and he did not want to get busted out and about. Despite the fact that skateboarding would have been a faster way to get from here to there and see him home, safe in his bed, he was walking. He didn't want to draw attention to himself by the sound of his board. The quieter he was, the better.

He grasped the strap of his messenger bag in his right fist, shifting blue eyes all around. He wasn't being paranoid, he was being careful. He had a weird feeling all day today and he hadn't been able to put his finger on it, all he knew, was that the same feeling had been pestering him, keeping him up late at night, making him space out on his friends, and the list went on and on. It came and went at different times during the day, but for whatever reason, it had been with him all day today.

It was starting to become normal, nameless, but normal. Like the rumble of a powerful engine, ricocheting off the building walls, and making the asphalt vibrate No, wait, that was actually happening. He felt the tingle slink up from his sneakers to the back of his knees and he turned his head to stare, wondering who had the gall to ride down the street on a motorcycle this late at night, when he noticed a burning torch in the rider's gloved hand. His eyes widened as the bike slowed and he tossed the Molotov cocktail through a window. Roxas' jaw dropped. He knew for a fact the building was the property of one of the men in the council.

The glass shattered and the stranger on the bike revved his engine three times, jerked the bike up on one wheel, rode half a block, landed on both wheels before speeding off, and like a siren's call, a group on motorcycles came roaring after him, all with flaming bottles in their hands.

He stared in disbelief as more windows broke and smoke rose into the air. He stood, frozen in shock, as the bikes flew out of his line of vision and didn't move until the sound of wailing sirens made him drop his board and take off down a side alley. He hadn't done anything, but he couldn't prove that, and there was no way he was taking the fall for something he hadn't been a part of, which was exactly what would happen, if he didn't get the hell out of there, and fast.

Roxas didn't think, he just moved. He narrowly avoided impaling himself on the random items littering the alley on the entire ride home. It was lucky for him he knew the way through them like the back of his hand, because taking the main streets would have gotten him locked up in the slammer, curled up in the corner, while some steroid junkie with tattoos on every bulging muscle and inch of skin, even his bald had, tried to kill him. Or worse. There were things worse than death.

Becoming Bubba's bitch was one of them.

He was a block away from his house, when he heard a siren coming up on him, and he stopped, hit the edge of his board with his sneaker, caught it, and dove to the side by the brick wall, crouching beside a dumpster. The smell was stomach-turning, he thought maybe his nose hairs were slowly burning away, his eyes were going to water any time now, and that burger he ate with the gang earlier was so coming up, but none of that mattered right now. Roxas clutched his board against his chest, not even bothering to breathe as the patrol car moved on past.

A sigh of relief tumbled past his lips when he heard it fading into the distance. "I thought I was done for," he muttered and got up, while reaching out for support. Unfortunately, the only thing there to grab onto was the dumpster, which meant he came away with a sticky hand.

"I hope to God that's soda." He said, vocals laced in disgust.

Roxas set his board down and wiped his hand on his slacks, stepped over to climb on the board and felt something squish beneath his sneaker. "Oh, for crying out loud, what is it now?" He propped his sneaker up on his knee, awkwardly crossing his legs and scoffed. "Of course," he mumbled with a shake of his head, "it would be gum."

He smeared it off on the asphalt as best he could, before planting a food on the board and taking off. If it got on the grip tape, so be it, he needed to get home.

Ten minutes later, he was leaning against the door leading into his house and trying to not to pant. He was breathless, he could feel adrenaline flaring through his system.

"Mom, Roxas is home!" He heard his sister say, and glanced towards the living room.

She was laying on her stomach on the couch, head propped in her hands, elbows on the cushion and she turned back to the television once she had announced his arrival. His gaze followed hers, she was watching the news, and he heard the sound that he knew meant breaking news, it helped that the words flashed across the screen moments later.

He didn't stick around to find out what the reporter was saying, because he already had a pretty good idea.

Roxas made a beeline for his room and closed the door behind him, tossed his skateboard on the love seat, and collapsed on his bed. He heard his sister calling his parents into the room, could practically feel their worried frowns, and stared up at the ceiling in awe. If he just laid here, without moving, or thinking, he could pretend nothing had happened, that today had been just like every other day before it.

He closed his eyes and saw a silhouette on a deep-red motorcycle.

There was no way he could forget today. Nothing like this ever happened here, in this city, where things were dull and controlled and exactly the same from one day to the next.

He wanted to remember today forever. He could go through everything again in his head, starting with how his morning began.

* * *

Roxas stumbled out of his room bleary-eyed with tousled hair and scratched his stomach, which was a bad idea, because the wall came out of nowhere and tried to kill him. Who even put a wall there? Wall elves. They had worked through the night, while he had been off in dreamland, all the while knowing he walked this path _every_ morning, but they did it, anyway.

Clearly, they were trying to kill him.

That had to be it.

"Stupid wall elves."

He rubbed his eyes and yawned, somehow managed to make his way down the hallway without tripping over anything or running into anymore surprise walls. He reached for the handle to the bathroom door and found it locked. Roxas groaned. Why did he even bother? Every time he needed in there, someone else was already occupying it and doing who even know what in there that took an eternity. He knocked on the door and cleared his throat.

"I need in there."

"I'll be out in a minute." His sister chirped.

Okay, what was she taking and where could he get some? So, he asked. Out loud. With his mouth. Never again was he allowed to speak this early in the morning. Nobody was that happy at the ungodly hour of evil, or.. as most people knew it, seven AM.

"Some people wake up with a smile, Roxas. You should try it some time, otherwise you're gonna wake up with all these disasteriffic frown lines and then you'll never get a girlfriend. And then I'll be the girl with a loser for a brother, with no nieces and nephews, and everyone will start to think you're some kind of leper and I'll just have to say "

"No, seriously." He pressed his head against the door, only resting his eyes. "Who's your dealer?"

Something hit the other side of the door and Roxas jerked his head away from it, startled, and swiped a line of drool off of his lip.

"Oooh," she huffed, "Mom, Roxas is calling me a drug addict, again!"

Roxas was still playing catch-up to the conversation. "Who said I wanted a girlfriend, anyway?" He grumbled.

"Fine, boyfriend,_ whatever_. No one's gonna want a meanie, grumpy face like you to begin with."

She couldn't see him, but he was flipping her the bird. "Better to be grumpy than strung-out."

"You You... You're adopted!" She yelled, with a stomp of her foot.

"If only." He said, with a dreamy tone. "Then, I could finally say we're not related, with feeling." Roxas reached for the doorknob and gave it a rattle. "Rikku, I need to get ready. Open the door!"

"In a minute!"

It took all his strength not to try and kick the door down and throttle her. He wasn't supposed to hit girls, but he was pretty sure she didn't count. Did alien chicks count? He could always say the whole dread lock and short-shorts thing confused him. He mistook her for a cross-dressing flamer. He smirked, but it fell seconds later when he realized that would be a hate crime.

He just couldn't win this morning.

Roxas made a beeline for the kitchen and opened the fridge. He stared at its contents like a child who had opened a gift they already had four of; his face was devoid of all delight. He closed it, counted to five in his head, and opened it again. Nothing had changed in that span of time. Nothing, even though he gave it a thorough browse. He sighed and pulled out some toaster strudels, walked over to the toaster and popped them in.

Ah, the glory of food you didn't have to prepare.

It was all very magical.

He turned his back to set a plate on the counter by the toaster oven and crossed over to the fridge to pull out something to drink. His eyes fell on the last Sunny Delight. Roxas set it on the island counter behind him and wandered over to the laundry basket on the coffee table. While Rikku was in the bathroom, he might as well get dressed. His toaster strudels popped up as he slipped into his school uniform. He buttoned up the top while slipping on his sneakers, and was fixing his tie when he heard the bathroom door open, and Rikku heading for the kitchen.

"Don't touch my breakfast," he warned, zipping up his pants.

Roxas picked up last night's sleepwear from the carpet and headed for the bathroom to toss his clothes in the hamper. When he came back into the kitchen, Rikku was sitting on the island, next to his Sunny Delight, chomping away on his toaster strudels. He glared at her and walked back over to the cupboard to pull out a box of Pop-Tarts. The package slid with ease into the pocket of his slacks. Screw heating them up, with his luck, she would eat them, too. He reached behind him on the island, feeling around for his juice, and when he couldn't find it, he angled his body in its direction.

"Rikku!" His hands tightened into fists at his sides.

She hopped off the counter, sipping away at _his_ Sunny Delight and grinned. "Finder's keepers," she declared with a shrug. It was free game, since he hadn't opened it yet.

He stared, and stared, and he thought maybe his eye twitched.

"You should get that checked out, kinda creepy. Does it twitch like that a lot? Is it hereditary? Am I gonna get the weird-eye-twitch? Oh, ewwww. Roxie I don't want it." She squirmed, looked distressed and chewed her lower lip. Her watch beeped, Roxas continued glaring, and she ruffled his hair.

How fast her moods changed.

"Better hurry up, creepy-eye. You're gonna be_ laaaaate_." She sing-songed the last word, before grabbing her shoulder bag off the armchair and heading for the door. "Don't miss class, kay?"

He forgot his anger when he realized exactly what time it was, and darted for the bathroom to fix his hair. Too many hair products later, he was reaching for his skateboard, messenger bag, and running out the door. He threw his board down and gave it all he got, speeding down the sidewalk and down driveways when people got in his way. He couldn't be held accountable for all the shoulders he rammed into while trying to swerve by them.

"Shit," he muttered, when he reached the corner of Hollow Bastion Avenue and his walking partner was nowhere to be seen. Namine was going to kill him. He covered his face in his hand, when he felt a timid tap on his shoulder.

"Roxas?"

He whipped around and smiled. "Namine. I thought I missed you."

She shook her head and crossed one arm over her body, holding her wrist. "I was running a little late this morning," she admitted bashfully. "I thought I was going to miss you. Looks like we both worried for nothing."

"Looks like," he agreed.

"Oh, we better get going." She started walking and Roxas lazily rolled on his board beside her, keeping pace with her.

"Think we'll make it before the first bell goes off?"

"I don't know, Roxas." She said, and nudged him with her shoulder. "I might."

"Was that a challenge?" He narrowed his eyes in a playful manner.

"Not a very fair one." Roxas broke into laughter and she followed after him. Maybe today wasn't so bad, after all.

* * *

School was all very interesting, you know, up until you were actually inside the classroom. Some days, staying home was perfect. Others, learning was the key, but no matter what day it was, the moment you were sitting in the uncomfortable plastic seat, none of that mattered. Roxas' eyes found the clock on the wall and he counted the time until the bell would ring. He had an entire hour to waste, which meant he had only been sitting here for ten minutes.

Ten minutes.

Ten minutes of idiots telling jokes that weren't even funny, of the teacher lecturing students for not having their supplies, of girls primping their hair, people were texting under their desks, of pointless shuffling through their backpacks, and Roxas already wanted to leave. He felt like he was above this.

"What's eatin' you?" Hayner asked, tossing his backpack onto his desk, and taking a seat beside him. "I know home room bites and all, but you don't gotta go looking like someone killed your dog, ran it over, boiled the fur off of it, cut it open, taped its intestines outside its body, and strung it up on the clothesline."

Roxas turned his head to stare at Hayner. Where did he come up with these things? Hayner just grinned at him and unzipped his backpack, he thought his mission was accomplished, but Roxas didn't feel any better about sitting in a room full of a bunch of morons, with the exception of his friends (sometimes.)

"Hayner stayed up all night watching B rated horror movies," Olette explained.

"Yeah, and he wouldn't stop texting me about it," Pence threw in, while opening his notebook.

"You think that's bad? Wait 'til he starts texting you about the_ other _kinds of movies he watches." The girl behind all four of them chirped up. Her name was Yuffie, she wasn't best friend material, but Olette seemed to like her enough.

Female company must have been a pleasant relief to her. The only thing that bugged Roxas about her, was that she had a habit of blurting out she was a ninja, just because she had been in training classes since she was a kid, and now had a black belt.

"Ewww," they all chimed at the same time, and Hayner turned red and pretended to find something interesting in his Catcher in the Rye novel.

The day dragged on uneventfully from there on, shuffling from one class to another, until lunch time. Roxas bolted from the room when it was time, ready to get something to snack on- his stomach was eating itself, if the growling was any indication. He bought a slice of pizza from the snack bar, no way was he eating cafeteria food, and headed over towards the tree they had sat under since Freshman year.

On his way there, he noticed some silver-haired sasquatch slipping into the stagecraft room, with a brunette that had weird flippy hair at his side. He had classes with both of them over the years, but he never bothered to talk to them. The guy he knew had the same name as his sister (only because he was the son of one of the councilmen) and the girl... her name was Sophie or Sophia, or something like that. They both crewed the plays every year, which wasn't his thing, so he kept walking.

He was almost to the tree, when he noticed a guy with flaming red hair holding a blond with a fauxhawk, mullet thing in a headlock outside of the gate. Roxas didn't mean to stare, but he slowed in step and watched. The redhead had what looked like tattoos under his eyes, which didn't seem very practical to him, and how bad had they hurt?

On his side of the gate, stood two high school students, talking to them. One of them was Sora, a kid he and Olette had tutored Sophomore year in his Chemistry class. He was nice enough, but other than that, they hadn't gone out of their way to befriend him. Besides, they all had their own friends, and one of Sora's was the girl standing beside him, also with bright auburn hair.

Kairi.

How could he even begin to forget her? She was the apple of Hayner's eye. Ever since middle school, he couldn't shut his mouth about her, and Roxas was beginning to think_ he_ had a crush on her, and he didn't even_ like_ girls.

The redhead outside of the fence released the blond from the headlock and met Roxas' gaze, his mouth fell open and he stopped staring, hurrying past to get to his friends. He must have looked like such an idiot. He studied his pizza intently as he walked, even went so far as to pretend he didn't hear Sora's: "Who? Oh, that's just Roxas."

Roxas dropped his stuff at the tree and sat down to eat his pizza.

Hayner, Pence, Olette, Namine, and Yuffie all sat in various places around him, engrossed in conversation and all he could think about was, why were Sora and Kairi talking to college kids?

* * *

"Roxas._ Roxas._ Roxaaaas!" The voice was like a buzzing fly, annoying and unrelenting. "Earth to Roxas, hello, anyone home in there?"

"Hayner, get your hand out of his face, you're going to make him fall!" Less annoying, but maybe because it wasn't targeted on him.

"'Lette's right, man, but it is kind of weird, that he's spacing out like that."

"Do you guys always gotta take his side? He's the one ignoring us, remember?" The voice took on a more irritated tone, before he made an 'aha' sound. "Yo, Roxas, free ice cream!"

The rolling sound of the skateboard's wheels came to a stop, catching on a crack on the pavement as Roxas came back to himself. He didn't have long to figure out what he had missed, when the board slid out from underneath his sneakers and shot off the curb and into the road. "W-Whoa!"

He stumbled forward, about to get extra intimate with the sidewalk, when he felt a hand fist in the collar at the back of his uniform jacket.

"Where's your brain, man?" Hayner asked, while holding Roxas up and pulling him back to his feet, to stand upright beside him. "Leave it at home again?"

"Hayner," Olette chided.

Pence rejoined them with Roxas' skateboard tucked under his arm. His expression was concerned. Roxas never fell, his board was attached to his feet. Coordination was his thing, and this unfamiliar trip-up had all of them zoning in on the blond. "Seriously, Roxas. You feeling okay?"

His friends were everything to him, they had grown up together, and he couldn't imagine a world without them by his side, but sometimes, all the fussing went a little over the top. "I'm fine," he snapped, and shrugged out of Hayner's grasp to walk over to Pence and take the board from him, to tuck it under his own arm.

The three exchanged glances and he rolled his eyes. It was a conspiracy, they were all ganging up on him.

"I was just thinking, alright?" He explained. Roxas wasn't sure it made them feel any better, but they seemed to catch the hint. Or at least, Olette and Pence did, Hayner still looked like he wanted to ask what he had been thinking about. Between the four of them, it was usually easy enough to tell what was on each other's mind.

"I've been thinking about the upcoming finals," Olette said, with concerned eyes and a smile that said she was in on the joke. She wasn't, of course, but she wanted to be. There were groans all around at mention of school when they weren't inside its prison walls. Roxas figured she would ask later, when none of the other guys were around. "It's a pretty stressful time right now. For all of us."

"Yeah," he said with a nod. It wasn't a complete lie. Finals were the nagging thought in the back of his mind, but it hadn't been what he was thinking about, not in the slightest.

"Finals Schminals, I say we go to The Usual Spot and gorge our gaping maws with grease!" He punched a fist into the air to emphasize the point, and left the three others staring at him, blinking in silence, they had even stopped walking. Hayner kept walking on, until he noticed nobody was following him, and turned around to stare at them. "What?"

"Gaping maws?" Pence repeated.

"Grease? Hayner, you haven't been running those experiments again, have you? The ones about what the human body can and cannot digest, because I told you, it's dangerous. You could get very sick." Olette's eyes saddened with concern, and her body went tense with maternal instincts.

"Dudes, relax, I was just trying to broaden my vocab. I told you I was off of those experiments when I spent the night in the bathroom, getting cozy with the toilet. Totally rancid." He grimaced.

Pence and Olette looked horrified.

"Well, you asked."

Roxas just laughed and clutched a hand over his stomach. It was a full-body glee, starting in one place, until he was red all over and breathless, he even dropped his skateboard. The others joined in, if only because, it was hard not to laugh when their friend was so obviously happy and well, dorkish.

"He," gasp, "was," gasp, "talking about," gasp, "getting," gasp, "some burgers." It was hard to talk between choking laughter.

"See, airhead here, knows what I'm talkin about!" Hayner exclaimed and draped an arm over Roxas' shoulder.

"Never, ever, ever tell me about adventures in your bathroom ever again." Pence said with a shake of his head, still grinning, and headed towards The Usual Spot.

Olette laughed and covered her mouth with her hand and glanced between Hayner and Roxas. "Come on you two, we better catch up with him."

"There's no way that sucker is getting there before I do. Nuh-uh. He's on crack if he thinks otherwise." Hayner scoffed, and let go of Roxas in favor of sprinting after Pence and jumping on his back. "Yah, camel! Onward!" He bellowed, knees digging into the bulky teen's sides, arms wrapped around his neck.

"He's crazy." Roxas smirked and picked up his skateboard, meeting Olette's eyes when he came back up with it in tow.

"He wouldn't be Hayner if he wasn't." Olette said and linked her arm through Roxas', ready to pull him along and towards their location, even over Hayner's cries of: "Come on, slowpokes, my Grandma can hobble faster than that!" and Pence's, "It's finally happened. Hayner's reverted to his ancestry. Ahh, get this primate off of me!"

"So, Roxas, what's been on your mind?" She asked.

He had known this was coming, which was why he chose to let the words of his friends echo through his mind instead.

"What'd you call me?" Hayner growled.

"Primate. It's kind of.. a monkey, caveman.. thing."

Somewhere between primate and monkey, he had jumbled up the meaning. "I don't mate with monkeys, freak! Where do you hear this garbage? Was it, Seifer? I bet it was Seifer, that douche, I'll kill him, I'll strangle him with that beanie of his, I'll make him wish "

Their bickering faded into white noise as Roxas felt the burn of Olette's eyes still on him. She was waiting and he had no idea what he was supposed to tell her.

"It's okay if you don't want to talk about it. Just.. if you need to talk to someone, I'm here for you." She squeezed his arm and smiled.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I know."

* * *

The Usual Spot was a burger joint they had been going to since the beginning of middle school, when their allowances and money from odd jobs actually amounted to enough to buy them a decent meal each. They even had a favorite booth in the back corner by the kitchen.

Hayner stirred his straw in his soda, one arm draped over the back of the booth. "Yeah, it was all very traumatic and heart-breaking, I don't know how I did it, but I was there for her, the entire time." He gave a pathetic huff, and lifted his hand from the straw to his eyes to swipe at them.

His friends were staring at him with varying looks of pity from the story he was telling, none of them were even sure anymore. All they were sure of was that he was trying to impress the waitress.

Kairi worked here, her family was pretty well off, but she liked to earn her own money. She was smiling politely from her perch in front of their table, violet eyes carefully focused on Hayner, before glancing to the rest of the group.

"So, the usual, then?" She asked the group, and they nodded. Kairi scrawled it down on the notepad, before scampering off into the kitchen, to Hayner's dismay.

"She so wants me." He stated.

It was at that precise moment that Seifer decided to walk by. "She wants you like she wants syphilis, loser."

Hayner's expression fell and he dropped his arm from the back of the booth, ready to climb over the table to get to Seifer, when Olette stood up and smiled apologetically at Hayner, then looked at the bully the same way. "Come on, not here, guys. Please?"

Seifer dismissed her with his hand. "Whatever, I don't have time for this, anyway." He disregarded their group and headed for his own.

Olette sat back at Pence's side and visibly relaxed.

"That guy never learns," Pence noted.

"You need a brain for that," Roxas joked.

Hayner was still put off, slumped beside Roxas, arms crossed. "He lives to make our lives hell. I'm really getting sick of it."

"Don't let him get to you." Olette thinned out her lips.

Kairi came out of the kitchen with their burgers, tray in her hand. She pulled out on of the small tray holders and set in upon it. She noticed the bummed out looks on all of their faces and raised both eyebrows. "Did I miss something?"

"Just Seifer." Those two words from Roxas' mouth explained everything.

Kairi sighed and put their plates in front of them. "Well, you know, Seifer. He's not happy unless he's making someone else miserable." The other three nodded, but Hayner remained unresponsive. The redhead didn't like conflict, which was why she smiled. "Hayner?"

He looked up.

"I liked your story." She wiped her hands off on her apron, before putting the folding table back in place and taking the tray back with her into the kitchen.

"Did you hear that?" He picked up his burger and bit into it. Hayner had no qualms about talking with his mouth full. "She liked my story. Mine. The one I made with my mouth and the talking. Why wouldn't she? My stories are AWESOME!"

All three of them groaned.

Olette, in a desperate hope to change the subject, piped up. "We should go to my house after this to study."

It was Hayner's turn to complain.

When they had finished eating, they all pitched in with the bill, and Roxas left the tip. Olette didn't live very far from the restaurant, which was a plus.

They spent the rest of the afternoon sprawled out on her bedroom floor, trying not to beat their faces against their textbooks.

"I can't take it anymore!" Hayner exclaimed.

"It's not that bad." Roxas turned his head to look at what Hayner was reading and frowned. "Hey, you've been on the same page for the past thirty minutes."

"Exactly! I can't think straight. My eyes are gonna fall out. I've read the same paragraph like twenty thousand times. I'm gonna snap."

Olette giggled and closed her book. "Calm down, Hayner. We have studied for awhile now. I think we can call it a day."

Pence pulled out his i-pod earphones and shrugged. "I didn't think it was that bad."

"Because you're an alien!" Hayner shoved his book into his backpack, never wanting to see it again.

"I always thought it was because I was smarter than you."

Roxas glanced at Olette and smiled, knowing full well where this conversation was going. "You thirsty?"

"Yeah, let's go get something to drink."

They headed out of the room and into her kitchen, ignoring the laughter from the two boys they left in the room, and the bickering words. Roxas opened the fridge and pulled out a couple caprisun. He stabbed the straw into his and brought it to his lips, watching as Olette did the same.

She fiddled with her straw, moving it in circles inside the juice pack, before drawing her eyes to him. "Do you... do you ever feel like we're missing out on something?"

Roxas turned to look at her, confusion and realization dawned on his face, but he didn't know what to say.

"That nothing here ever changes?"

He opened his mouth to say something, to answer her, to explain that was what he had been thinking about all day, when Hayner and Pence came stumbling into the room.

"What's going on?" Pence asked.

Hayner grabbed the two caprisuns and tossed one to Pence. He caught it.

"I - I gotta go." Roxas stammered, before shouldering between them and heading for Olette's room to get his messenger bag and skateboard.

* * *

His walk home had been boring, meek, left much to be desired, up until the motorcycle gang had appeared. Roxas didn't know what he was supposed to do about it. On the one hand, he could have gone forever living in ignorance about missing anything in this bland life, trapped in this city, even with Olette bringing it up, but... could he now- after what he had witnessed today?

A taste of change.

He sat up on his bed and turned to the window. Roxas lifted the blinds with his fingers to peer through them, out into the night, across the streets. His heart was still racing with excitement.

A fist pounded against his door and he fell off his bed with a crash. "What," he barked.

"There's an icky bike gang causing acts of terrorism. Mom says you're not allowed out past six anymore."

He dropped his head back on the carpet.

His carefully constructed snow globe of a world was cracking.

Rikku knocked again.

"What now?"

"You didn't see them, did you?"

Roxas continued staring up at the ceiling, ignoring his sister. He didn't think he could pretend anymore.


End file.
